New platform enables anyone around the world to invest in Armenia private businesses, startups

YEREVAN, DECEMBER 6, ARMENPRESS. The Armenian National Interests Fund(ANIF) launched a new project, the ARFI Platform - Armenia Financed - a crowdfunding platform which allows anyone from all over the world to invest in private businesses and new startup projects in Armenia and become a part of them.

ARFI CEO Edgar Evoyan explained to ARMENPRESS how they came up with the idea to launch the project.

“As you know, ANIF was launched with the mission to implement large-scale projects in Armenia with major foreign investors and institutional partners. The main goal is to invest state-sourced resources, at the same time promote private, bigger capital flow into the Armenian economy. First of all, comparably smaller companies and projects were applying to ANIF, who were not meeting the terms of ANIF and the entrepreneur-state anti-crisis fund. At the same time, there was interest among individual investors to make small-scale investments in funded projects. As a result, the ANIF executives came up with the idea to involve an instrument in the electronic environment for attracting investments, which would enable both local businesses to attract funds, and investors from around the world to participate in Armenian projects with potential,” Evoyan said.

The Central Bank of Armenia registered and licensed ARFI on November 29, 2022.

ARFI will be open for investments from 2023.

Evoyan expressed certainty that ARFI will increase trust among investors. “Imagine for a moment that a large part of our Diaspora Armenians and other foreign investors have invested through the platform and have already seen its benefits. Naturally, it will increase trust for making more investments in Armenia, and why not even to launch a new initiative in Armenia, because it is one thing to hear about some successes from far away, but it is another thing to personally feel and reap its benefits. From another perspective, this is an opportunity for companies and potential business ideas to find funding and to advance,” Evoyan said.

ARFI guarantees investors that after the successful completion of funding the ownership right will be registered as required in the Central Depository of Armenia. And in case of a funding failing to reach the minimum threshold, ARFI will return the investment to the investor. Moreover, before the funds reach a company, the investors’ money is stored in special bank accounts protected from the risk of bankruptcy.